Back in February, some may have scoffed when liquidity-challenged business tycoon Halsey Minor vowed that he might eventually own one of his nemeses, a multi-billion-dollar banking company. But that was two legal victories ago, with the latest a private arbitration which awards Minor at least $6.6 million in the tussle over the unfinished Landmark hotel.

Coming just a month after teaching Christie’s auction house— via an $8 million jury award— that it doesn’t pay to play hardball with the man who co-founded CNet, the June 28 arbitration decision appears to vindicate the youthful-looking business tycoon and vanquish the hotel development company operated by Lee Danielson, the man who launched the 1990s renaissance of the Downtown Mall.

Ironically, it had been Danielson who had been pushing the matter toward arbitration as Minor’s lawyer tried mightily to keep the matter in the courts. However, at a February 17 hearing, Charlottesville Judge Edward Hogshire forced the two sides to choose an arbitrator to lessen the courthouse burden. And what the arbitrator chose puts a hefty burden on Danielson.

Donald H. Kent of Richmond-based arbitration firm The McCammon Group ruled that Danielson possessed such a passion for building a luxury hotel that he misrepresented the construction costs— including hiding the fact that the restaurant wasn’t included in the budget.

“The cumulative effect of this deliberate and reckless conduct,” wrote Kent, “amounts to gross negligence.”

Contacted for comment, Minor points to a recent essay he penned about the structure of American law. In his June 15 article for the Huffington Post, Minor urges legal action against employees and managers of companies— he mentions Exxon and British Petroleum among others— that harm citizens. “The threat of public prosecution,” writes Minor, “can be a powerful check on the corporate culture of pathological recklessness that is rapidly devouring America.”

As for Danielson, the man who built the just-closed Charlottesville Ice Park and downtown Regal cinema, says he was shocked by the decision. “I did the best job I could,” said a chastened Danielson.

Amid Minor’s victory, however, there was a bit of a rebuke to his lawyer, DLA Piper, whose billings through February 11 were said to be $2.8 million. However, the arbitrator declared that “reasonable” fees were lower and capped the legal reimbursement at just $2.24 million. That combines with $4.2 million in damages, and the arbitrator left open the idea that Danielson’s company may owe Minor for future losses.

As lawyers say, it may all turn out to be moot, as both Danielson and Minor have made statements suggesting that Danielson’s company, Hotel Charlottesville LLC, is heading for insolvency. Minor insists he’s not going that way.

The Charlottesville-bred Minor, whose business masterstrokes include making early investments in GoogleVoice and Salesforce.com, has held a fortune once estimated around $355 million. But lately Minor has found himself pegged as California’s biggest tax deadbeat and losing a pair of creditor lawsuits.

In one of the creditor cases, a judge ordered Minor to pay the Sotheby’s auction house $6.64 million and issued a court order demanding that Minor give up many of his worldly goods. As first reported in the New York Post, Minor must fork over all furniture, tapestries, chandeliers, and as well as furs, gems, and watches valued at $35 or more. The June 2 court order also requires Minor to give up all vehicles, including his Audi A8, as well as all collectibles “except for basic tableware and basic cooking utensils and crockery.”

At one point, the court order called for Minor to turn over pets and even food beyond a 60-day supply, but judge Barbara S. Jones scribbled out those demands.

“Eating is not necessary for us, but Fluffy the cat stays,” Minor jotted in a jocularly defiant email to a reporter. Minor has traced his liquidity woes to an allegedly unfair account freeze by Merrill Lynch, the Bank of America subsidiary which triumphed over him in one piece of litigation last year.

The arbitration decision leaves unanswered exactly what will become of the empty concrete shell looming over Charlottesville’s Downtown Mall. In recent days, the 11-story would-be hotel has been rocked by allegations that it already serves as a hotel. For the homeless.

After the Landmark allegedly defaulted on its construction loan, control of the project began shifting to Specialty Finance Group, a division of Silverton Bank, which collapsed into the arms of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. With numerous pieces of litigation— including suits from the contractor and bank— the FDIC has thus far declined to sell or indicate plans for the property.

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Original posting: In the high-stakes, high-profile litigation surrounding the long-stalled Landmark hotel project, financier Halsey Minor has won a major arbitration award against the company run by the former developer, Lee Danielson. C-Ville Weekly has a story of the award against Danielson’s company which includes $4.2 million in damages and $2.4 million in legal fees.

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Just days after Landmark Hotel owner Halsey Minor characterized the rumors that people were sleeping in the abandoned hotel project as a possible “urban myth,” Charlottesville police have nabbed at least two people trespassing on the site.

The Hook spoke to one man who was discovered and removed from the building by police two nights ago, but who avoided arrest. Today, the Newsplex reported that another trespasser was arrested on Thursday, but Charlottesville Police Chief Tim Longo says there was no arrest and that the Newsplex reporter was asked to correct the story.

“I’m told that officers did remove an intoxicated person from within the barrier wall who was trespassing,” says Longo.

The man the Hook spoke to, who wished to remain anonymous, says the first time he slept in the hotel was after the Sharron Jones and the Dap-Kings show in December.

“I used to work in construction,” the man says, “and the barriers they put up weren’t that strong. You could pry them open and get through. It was pretty easy to get up there.”

That first night he went all the way up on the roof.

“I like to be in high places,” he says. “and I really wanted to see the view and watch the sunrise. So I decided to give it a whirlski.”

The man says he’s since talked to others who’ve slept in the hotel structure, some after hearing his stories about it. But now that police appear to be aware of the trend, the man says he’s likely to find other places to stay for awhile.

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City officials had once hoped the Landmark Hotel would attract wealthy and sophisticated visitors to the Downtown Mall with luxurious accommodations and spectacular views of the City, but since the project was unceremoniously halted over a year ago, the unfinished structure appears to have attracted a different clientele.

Already dealing with nine months of construction on an $800,000 streetscaping project, Chas Webster, owner of The Box on Second Street SE, says that homeless people squatting in the Landmark have created another headache for his restaurant.

“They shout at people and throw beer bottles down in the street at night,” says Webster. “We’ve called the police about it a number of times.”

Webster has heard reports of flashlights and the light of a cook stove as high as the sixth floor of the 11-story structure and that construction workers on a streetscaping project have told him they’ve found bedding and camping equipment in the mornings.

“I don’t doubt his word,” says Charlottesville Police Chief Tim Longo. “But they don’t appear to be leaving debris behind. The only discernable debris I saw was on the first level, where I only saw a few beer bottles.”

“They’re up there all the time,” says Downtown Mall resident Steven Martin, whose top floor apartment in the Jefferson Theater affords him a (more)

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A somewhat forbidding sky looms over Water Street— including its most controversial component, the unfinished Landmark hotel— in an image captured at 6:14pm Sunday, May 23. However, no rain fell that date.

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After a two-week trial in a federal court in San Francisco, jurors have awarded Internet millionaire and Charlottesville hotel builder Halsey Minor over $8 million in his lawsuit against Christie’s, a rebuke to the auction house and a change of outcome for the frequent litigant.

“We have a verdict,” scrawled the foreperson on Friday, May 21, at 1:51pm as the jury found that Christie’s committed fraud and conversion against Minor and awarded him $8.57 million. The jury did, however, grant Christie’s, in its counterclaim, $1.5 million (more)

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After a week spent inside some Omni hotel conference rooms putting on evidence as if at trial, would-be hotel-makers Lee Danielson and Halsey Minor each offer their own spin on their court-ordered binding arbitration process.

Danielson, taking note of the various lawsuits Minor is facing and waging, contends that the $3.5 million Minor alleges he’s spent on legal fees litigating the Landmark hotel— a moldering eyesore on the Downtown Mall— might have actually completed the project.

“The hotel should be finished,” says Danielson, “and a man of this substance should be able to finish it and work out his other problems.”

Minor and the experts he called to testify in the arbitration procedure— which was closed to the public including the media— don’t see it that way.

“Lee has to have the last word no matter how inane and ridiculous,” says Minor. “Lee’s and the bank’s budget was $30 million, which both experts considered fantasy.”

Construction on the Landmark ceased a year ago with accusations from various parties about unpaid bills, unfunded loans, bogus budgets, and a spendthrift owner. All that the two sides agree on at this point is that they expect to hear a decision on the binding arbitration in June.

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Halsey Minor, the CNet-founding millionaire whose Midas touch has been tarnished by a series of setbacks including the threat of foreclosure on his Albemarle farm and a work stoppage at what was to be a luxury hotel on the Charlottesville Downtown Mall, now finds himself atop the list of delinquent taxpayers in California.

Minor and his wife, Shannon, had a lien filed against them on July 21 and owe the state $13.1 million for personal income tax, according to the just-published list.

Minor concedes that he has liquidity issues, but he blames them all on Merrill Lynch, the once high-flying Wall Street firm that improperly, Minor alleges, put a billion-dollar freeze on his accounts and liened far more of his artworks than necessary to collateralize his loan, thus setting in motion a cascade of financial woes that include lawsuits from two art auction houses.

“The good news,” says Minor, “is I have made a significant amount of money over the last several years, but Merrill has greatly undermined my liquidity.”

Merrill— in the lawsuit it won on a motion for summary judgment— alleges that Minor simply violated terms of his credit line via spendthrift ways. In October, federal judge Sidney H. Stein ruled (more)

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For the third straight year, the number of cars visiting the three lots controlled by Charlottesville Parking Center has fallen. And yet that didn’t stop the company, the city’s oldest and largest parking company, from increasing its profitability.

The report came Thursday, March 25, at the annual meeting of the firm organized in 1959 to fend off competition from Barracks Road Shopping Center by providing free or low-cost parking to downtown businesses.

The privately-held company (of which the Hook owns a single share to gain meeting access) reported that the number of (more)

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The tussle over the unfinished Landmark Hotel entered a new chapter Wednesday, as lawyers for developer Lee Danielson and owner Halsey Minor sparred before Judge Edward Hogshire, who ended up pushing some of the battle into arbitration.

“It won’t obviate what’s left of the suit completely,” said the judge, “but a lot of these issues will be resolved with arbitration.”

The last time these two titans clashed was late November when Judge Hogshire threw out Minor’s fraud claims— but also let Minor refile the suit. And refile he did, making the same basic allegations that Danielson intentionally “sabotaged” the project to force Minor out.

In court on February 17, Judge Hogshire heard Danielson’s attorney Connor Crook slam the December 11 refiling as an attempt to evade the judge’s last ruling in which Danielson, who is also suing Minor, was treated not as an individual but as the head of a company called Hotel Charlottesville LLC.

“Since the court has already thrown out these (more)

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In the bitter cold outside the Albemarle County Courthouse Monday, January 4, Internet tycoon and half-built hotel owner Halsey Minor, through his attorneys (David Pettit and Michael Derdeyn of Feil, Pettit & Williams), appears on his way to coughing up some cold, hard cash to avoid losing his 205-acre estate, Fox Ridge Farm.

As the highest bidder at his own foreclosure auction, attended by about two dozen people despite the cold, Minor had to put down $75,000 of the $1.39 million he bid to settle a loan secured against the property earlier this year and avoid losing his farm. The loan came from a limited liability company fronted by Virginia National Bank founding president Mark Giles, who attended the auction and made several bids himself, driving up the $1.1 million opening bid announced by trustee Nancy Schlichting, of Lenhart Obenshain, the law firm handling the foreclosure for Giles and company.

There was one other bidder who went as high as $1.35 million, and as the second highest bidder, will have first dibs on the property, which would mean taking over the $6.7 million first mortgage loan from First Republic Bank, should Minor fail to make good on the balance owed to Giles and company.

According to the trustees, the balance of the payoff amount to Giles, including fees, unpaid real estate taxes, and a five percent cut to Lenhart Obenshain, is $1.155 million, which means Minor ended up paying $235,000 more—roughly 22 percent–than he originally owed on the second loan. However, that’s not as bad as it sounds because any payment Minor makes over what’s owed to Giles and company goes to the owner of the property–Minor himself. So, in reality, Minor actually paid around $115,000 more than he owed. Confused? You’re not alone. That’s because its pretty unusual, according to a spokesperson at Lenhart Obenshain, for a property owner who has been foreclosed on to buy back his own property at auction.

As local real estate developer Richard Spurzem points out, the event on the courthouse steps was more of a high stakes poker game than a real auction.

Sprurzem says the fact that Giles bid meant he had the means to purchase the property and felt it was worth the roughly $8 million it went for. But Spurzem remains curious as to why Giles didn’t continue bidding. As he points out, Giles would have really got the property for only $6.7 million, as any bid money against the second loan would have gone back to him as the holder of the loan. Of course, Minor, too, could have easily kept challenging any bid, for as we’ve mentioned already, anything more than the amount owed to Giles and company would have come back to him as the owner of the property. Giles or Minor did not respond to questions about their motives by press time.

So what the heck was this whole exercise about?

“Minor probably thought these guys weren’t going to foreclose because they didn’t want to buy the first mortgage,” says Spurzem, adding that maybe Minor figured he could buy back his property for considerably less than he owned on it at auction. “But he should have realized that when it was foreclosed on it meant Giles had the money, and was willing to buy the farm.”

Still, Spurzem agrees with Minor when he told the Hook that Fox Ridge Farm had as much chance of being sold “as I do appearing on the cover of the Hook with a halo and wings.”

“It was all part of a game,” says Spurzem. “Halsey’s game.”

Of course, Minor has alleged that the foreclosure was part of a game being played by Giles and his “friend and golfing buddy” Lee Danielson, the developer of Minor’s stalled Landmark hotel project, whom Minor has re-filed a lawsuit against. But that’s a rationale Danielson has called preposterous.

--major update 4:00pm January 5
–minor edits at 10:14am January 4
–original headline: “Minor holds on to Fox Ridge Farm”
–update 4:00pm Jan

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Quite a few additions to our physical landscape in 2009 took a long time to materialize, and others could take a longer time still. Was it worth the wait? And are they worth waiting for? We’ll let you be the judge as we present some On Architecture highlights from 2009.

We’re calling this first photo the “On Architecture Photo of the Year” for the way it brings together two controversial projects in 2009. Charlottesville Mayor Dave Norris, with City Councilor Satyendra Huja beside him, stood in the shadow of what has become Charlottesville’s most famous unfinished building, the $31 million Landmark Hotel, as they presided over a May 29 dedication ceremony for the $7.5 million Downtown Mall re-bricking project. The hotel’s financier, Halsey Minor, and its developer, Lee Danielson, dreamed of a luxury hotel towering over the Mall’s new Halprinian bricks, complete with a roof-top restaurant with spectacular views. But Minor and Danielson had a sudden falling out, and Minor an alleged falling short, leaving us with a very tall eyesore. Will the hotel get built in 2010? Minor has vowed to finish “that damn hotel because I started it,” but that appears to be as likely as Minor appearing, as he once put it, on the cover of the Hook with wings and a halo.

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New Martha Jefferson Hospital

At an October 14 “topping off” ceremony, the final steel beam was secured on the new 500,000-square-foot, $275 million Martha Jefferson Hospital on Pantops Mountain. As part of the ceremony, over 300 workers stood at attention along each floor of the building while MJH president James Haden hoped for their continued safety and thanked them for their hard work. The hospital, which Haden said was 40 percent complete at the time, is scheduled to be finished in 2012. Meanwhile, MJH’s old location on a 14-acre tract  along Locust Avenue will be developed into a $170 to $200 million mixed-use development.

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Sacajawea gets a plaque

On June 10, close to a hundred people gathered at the foot of the Lewis and Clark statue at the intersection of streets called Ridge, Main, and McIntire to dedicate a plaque to Sacajawea, the Shoshone woman who accompanied Meriwether Lewis and William Clark on the first American expedition to the Pacific coast. It was a response to concerns that Sacajawea’s representation, crouched beneath the two men in bronze, underplayed her importance to the expedition. The City invited two of Sacajawea’s descendants to write the text and attend the ceremony.

“When I saw this statue I was very sad, but you are leading the way, Charlottesville,” Rose Ann Abrahamson, Sacajawea’s great-great-great niece, told the crowd. “I believe this expedition had divine intervention, because we are all here together.”

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Fry’s Spring Service Station

The city’s only historically protected gas station, the circa 1931 Fry’s Spring Service Station, ended its more than 70-year run of car care when sold in April to Fry’s Garage LLC in McLean for $800,000. Run by owner Jimmy Houchens for more than 40 years, it made the Virginia Landmarks Register in 2007 for its Spanish colonial-meets-Jefferson exterior and its Art Deco bathrooms. But a family dispute held up its inclusion in state and national historic registers.

“I’ve been here since I was a baby,” Kristy Houchens, 37, told the Hook at the time of the sale. “It’s an icon. It’s kind of the end of an era.”

Meanwhile, the old service station begins a new era as a restaurant/coffee place/sports bar, according to the folks at the nearby Fry’s Spring Exxon, who say a guy named “PK” has been busy renovating the building. By press time, attempts to reach the owner(s) had been unsuccessful, but you can be sure we’ll keep trying.

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The Gleason

During an open house reception in August atop the downtown ACAC for the topping off of the six-story, 122,000-square-foot Gleason condo building, one of the only planned downtown towers to actually get built, a rainbow after a sudden summer squall appeared to be a good omen. Not counting the new National Ground Intelligence Center and a few behemoths at UVA, it’s the biggest building ever constructed in Charlottesville. As it nears completion, more than half of its 38 condo units have been sold at prices ranging from $339,000 to $1.2 million.

Developer J.P. Williamson admitted the credit situation was grim, but said the demand for downtown residential space remains high. The simple trick for success, he said, was abandoning the old development model that got us into this mess.

“That speculative development model for mixed use condominium buildings— which never really existed in Charlottesville— dominated markets like Las Vegas, Atlanta, and Miami,” he said. “The classic speculative model— option a property, market it, hope to close acquisition and construction financing at the same time with limited equity model– is over.”

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Goodbye, Mr. Halprin

On Sunday, October 25, at the age of 93, Downtown Mall designer Lawrence Halprin died at his home in San Francisco. Along with Charlottesville’s Downtown Mall in 1976, Halprin designed the Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial in Washington, DC, in 1997, Sea Ranch in Sonoma County, California, in 1967, and Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco in 1968. Halprin received the Thomas Jefferson Medal in architecture from UVA, as well as the nation’s highest artistic award, the National Medal of the Arts.

If it wasn’t for Halprin, the $7.5 million Mall re-bricking project might have been a fiasco, as City planners, who had not bothered to consult Halprin, originally wanted to replace the Mall’s old bricks with smaller new ones, not to mention adding a cascading water fall on the east end and a “Sister City Plaza” in front of the skating rink, which they believed would be more stable. However, when the Hook asked Halprin how he felt about the renovation, the size of the bricks was one of his main concerns.

“I feel it’s important to maintain the original brick size and pattern as the ground level establishes the character for the Mall,” he said. “If the bricks need to be replaced, I urge the city to replace them with similar ones.”

Even after Halprin’s comment, however, city planners continued to push for the smaller bricks, claiming that the larger 4 x 12 bricks were made only in a factory in Nebraska and would be prohibitively expensive.

Eventually, after some public pressure, the city heeded Halprin’s advice, somehow locating 4 x 12 bricks  made in Virginia and relatively inexpensive. It was the last defense Halprin made for a Downtown Mall design he said remained “close to my heart.”

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As expected, internet titan Halsey Minor has refiled his lawsuit against Lee Danielson, the developer of the stalled Landmark hotel, and the company that financed it.

The amended lawsuit was filed Friday, December 11, in Charlottesville Circuit Court, and like the previous suit, it alleges that Danielson colluded with the lender to intentionally sabotage the project. Danielson has called the allegations “fantasy,” but to the judge who’ll have to hear the arguments, Edward Hogshire, the whole thing is a “nightmare.”

Unfortunately, it’s not particularly good reading, as 25 of the 46 exhibits are sealed, and there are 44 redactions which render the 50-page fraud and breach of contract complaint practically incomprehensible. Many of Minor’s various pieces of litigation include Protective Orders, rendering certain information, such as personal financial records, confidential.

Less murky, perhaps, is the fact that the headquarters of the plaintiff, Minor Family Hotels LLC, aka 2800 Ridge Road, aka Fox Ridge Farm, is slated to hit the auction block next week unless Minor cures the alleged million-dollar default in advance of the planned December 21 foreclosure sale.

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Lawyers for formerly entwined hotel-makers Halsey Minor and Lee Danielson will be in court Friday in a case that puts the troubled Landmark Hotel project back in the spotlight. In a follow-up to a recent story about hotel owner Minor, here is a look at most if not all of the litigation in which Minor has recently been involved.

The Landmark Hotel

Minor v. Danielson & SFG
Filed: February 11, 2009, Charlottesville Circuit Court
Alleging: That Danielson’s company, Hotel Charlottesville LLC, intentionally hid $5.2 million in expenses for such “ordinary and customary” costs as elevators, (more)

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He has just lost another lawsuit— this time a $21.6 million judgment for Merrill Lynch— but Halsey Minor vows that legal setbacks won’t deter his quest to complete the Landmark Hotel, an incomplete eyesore that holds the promise of topping the Omni as the most luxurious lodging on the Downtown Mall.

In a recent series of telephone interviews, the man who founded internet giant CNet and whose riches soared to $355 million around the turn of the century alleges that everything the public has been told about him in recent days is wrong.

Minor says he’s not to blame for the Landmark mess, he’s not broke, and he’s not going to let go of the hotel without (more)

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Halsey Minor says he was merely trying to warn Bank of America that it was getting a bad deal when it agreed to buy troubled investment bank Merrill Lynch, the firm that’s now audaciously demanding that Minor return the $24 million or so that he borrowed. But in the spiral of litigation that followed that warning, he’s now been hit with a court order that would prevent him from harassing parties to the litigation and those who would try to collect (more)

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While our colleague Allan Smithee is certainly a talented writer, he sometime plays a little fast and loose with the facts. [See "The Rutabaga--editor.]

Second Street SE on the Downtown Mall may look like a trash site right now, but Neighborhood Development chief Jim Tolbert assures us that an $808,000 streetscaping project is scheduled to begin in September. The project was originally planned to be completed in coordination with the construction of the Landmark Hotel, but as that project appears to be stalled indefinitely, the city has decided not to wait.

According to city engineer Tony Edwards, the project should take about four months. And the eye-popping price tag? That appears to be the result of (more)

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Neighborhood development chief Jim Tolbert announced today that the section of Second Street SE beside the abandoned Landmark Hotel has become an RSWA-sponsored waste transfer station. The site, which is being called the Landmark Materials Transfer Facility, has actually been accepting construction and demolition debris, as well as careless source unseparated recyclables such as coffee cups and cigarette butts, since the Downtown Mall re-bricking project was completed earlier this year. Tolbert says the program has been a success so far.

“We’ve been full to capacity (more)

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Hook box found among the rubble at the base of the partially constructed Landmark Hotel. Hmmmm.
– photo by Gordon Block

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A month after it took over the operations of failed Atlanta-based lender Silverton Bank, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation will instead dissolve the bank as of Wednesday, July 29 and sell off Silverton’s assets in a fire sale— including the construction loan on the unfinished Landmark Hotel.

This means that now Silverton’s interest in the Landmark won’t be sold as part of a one-off package deal for all of Silverton’s assets, but will now instead be likely be bundled with a few of the other Silverton holdings in a smaller sale.

Among those assets is Specialty Finance Group, the wholly-owned subsidiary of Silverton Bank that actually holds the $23.5 million Landmark loan. In a letter obtained by the Hook, SFG assured its borrowers that it remains unaffected by the FDIC’s actions on its parent company.

“Silverton Bridge Bank [Silverton's new name under the FDIC] is separate and apart from SFG,” the letter reads, “and this announcement will not affect the SFG loan portfolio.”

While that’s technically true, the FDIC took over all of Silverton’s operations as of May 1— including those of Specialty Finance Group. As such, FDIC spokesperson David Barr says that the government will likely attempt to sell SFG lock, stock, and barrel to another bank in the near future.

“I would imagine that with a subsidiary like SFG, we’ll attempt to sell the whole thing,” says Barr, “but if we have yet to sell it by the 29th, we’ll continue to operate it.”

The news comes after reports emerged that D.C.-based private equity firm the Carlyle Group had been interested in buying the totality of Silverton and its assets.

Should the FDIC fail to sell SFG as a whole, the next step for the Landmark Hotel loan would be for it to be sold as part of a bundle of Silverton loans to either another bank or a private investor. Just who would want to buy a loan on which the owner has [allegedly] defaulted, particularly one presently tied up in litigation in two different states? According to (more)

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Charlottesville Mayor Dave Norris, with City Councilor Satyendra Huja beside him, stands in the shadow of the unfinished Landmark Hotel as he begins the dedication ceremony for the completion of the Downtown Mall re-briking project today. A marching band was supposed to play, but sudden showers chased them away. Norris handed out original Mall bricks to a long list of folks responsible for the new Mall project, and the original one, including former city manager Cole Hendrix, state delegate David Toscano, ex-councilor Meredith Richards, and at least seven or eight folks who didn’t show up.

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A sign suggesting that building might soon resume at the dormant Landmark hotel site caught the attention of officials with Bovis Lend Lease, but the construction firm says it’s just a hoax, one that’s as big a mystery to Bovis as anyone else.

“We’re not involved in the project in any way,” says Bovis spokesperson Mark Roy from the the company’s Bethesda, Maryland office. He notes that the sign shows a longer corporate name that was abandoned in 1998– though he says he’s amused by the stir, including a May 26 story on Channel 19.

“Obviously, you guys want the job done,” says Roy. “We’d be happy to do it. Tell the owner to call us.”

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Despite an ongoing lawsuit between the two parties, auction house Sotheby’s sold a painting originally purchased by Internet entrepreneur and Landmark Hotel owner Halsey Minor on Thursday, May 21 after Minor refused to settle his balance due to what he calls “fraudulent” business practices on Sotheby’s part. According to the Art Market Monitor, Childe Hassam’s “Paris, Winter Day” sold Thursday for $2.3 million, more than a year after Minor bid $3.9 million for it.–file photo by Jay Kuhlmann

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After going quiet for nearly six months, Internet entrepreneur Halsey Minor is speaking up again about his stalled Landmark Hotel project— including a new lawsuit he faces from the project’s former developer, Lee Danielson. Minor says the other players in the project are all unfairly and inaccurately blaming him.

“I’ve heard all this junk from Lee, and the bank, and the contractors, and it’s just not true,” says Minor. “It’s not my responsibility, it’s theirs.”

Minor’s remarks come on the heels of a $5.75 million lawsuit from Danielson, whom Minor fired in November, accusing Minor of unlawfully (more)

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Back in August, one long-time Downtown business owner expressed some skepticism about the proposed timeline for the $7.5 million Mall renovation project. Though the business owner hoped the project would go as planned, he said “if they get it done in that time frame, it will be a miracle.”

Apparently, we have a miracle on our hands. While there are still a few things left to do, and— in one case— undo, a majority of the project, which commenced on January 4, has been finished on time and 15 percent under budget, says neighborhood development chief Jim Tolbert.

Tolbert credits Barton Malow, the general contractor for the project, the MMM Design team, and the “great cooperation” between his staff and the downtown merchants and property owners for the success of the project.

“I think this is a model of (more)

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The legal and financial mess that is the Landmark Hotel project just got a lot messier today. Amid lawsuits from and alleged defaults by its owner Halsey Minor, on Friday, May 1, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation announced today that it is taking over the operations of the Landmark’s construction lender, Atlanta-based Silverton Bank. This makes the Silverton the 30th bank to fail in calendar year 2009.

“This means they had a lot of bad loans,” says local real estate developer Richard Spurzem. “Beyond that, I’m not sure what it means, other than that it adds a new level of complexity.”

Minor had entered a loan agreement with Silverton Bank in March 2008, with Minor putting up $7 million in equity and Silverton agreeing to provide the additional $23.6 million for the construction of the hotel.

Then on November 12, 2008, after Silverton withheld one of its regular payments and Minor cried foul.

“It’s a mess,” Minor told the Hook. “I’ve already got my money in this. I put up $7 million in equity up front. They had until Friday to pay $1.1 million, and they just didn’t. They flat-out did not pay.”

“We disagree with Mr. Minor’s comments,” said Silverton Bank in a statement to counter Minor’s suggestion that the bank was on shaky ground. “The loan is proceeding per the terms specified clearly in the loan agreement between the borrower and [Silverton subsidiary] Specialty Finance Group. Any assertion otherwise is inaccurate.”

In February, Silverton filed a notice of default against Minor in Fulton County, Georgia and in April appointed Richmond attorney Stuart Simon as the substitute trustee for the Landmark, two key steps the bank would need to take before foreclosing on the property and selling it to someone else. Now, it remains to be seen whether that will ever happen, and how this affects Minor’s pending fraud suit against the bank and his former developer Lee Danielson.

The FDIC, however, assures clients in their press release that their move allows Silverton to continue to operate “with the least amount of disruption” and that “there is not expected to be any meaningful impact on the bank’s clients.”

FDIC spokesperson David Barr says it’s “too soon to say” how their takeover affects both the Landmark Hotel and the lawsuits surrounding the project, but does say that their takeover doesn’t mean Minor is off the hook.

“We just got in there today, but the FDIC always reviews pending litigation,”  says Barr. “We could move to dismiss the case, or we could try to settle. We just need to get in there and review all the facts.”

Minor did not return the Hook’s call for comment by the time of this post.

–updated May 1 at 6:19pm

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